The Gaming Den

Why the fuck is the dwarf needed to be a bad choice instead of an fair or dare I say a good but in a different way?

The mechanics of magic in d20 vs the mechanics of physical combat (multiple stats vs one stat) means that pretty much we shouldn't have a race that has a bonus or minus to Int or Wis; or be allowed to take a class that uses their minus stat.

-Crissa

Why'd you want anything playable to be bad? Alternatively, who the fvck do you think you are to dictate AD&D class rules back?

Crissa wrote:The mechanics of magic in d20 vs the mechanics of physical combat (multiple stats vs one stat) means that pretty much we shouldn't have a race that has a bonus or minus to Int or Wis; or be allowed to take a class that uses their minus stat.

Not necessarily. If a race has something that makes them good at a specific class set, you can add a disadvantage to that very class set. Not supported in all flavors, but surely possible for some.

Leress: "The Dwarf" isn't. "Someone" is.

Crissa: As for the mechanics of magic: We need to work on that. MAD for some classes and not for others is bad. MAD overall, not necessarily. But having casters laugh at it is disgustingly unfair as written.

Bigode: The point is that minotaur wizards are unplayable -because- they are bad, not because we arbitrarily decreed that "Dwarves can't be wizards" even though their mechanics or fluff don't justify that at all like second edition did with doing said declaration.

Elennsar wrote:Leress: "The Dwarf" isn't. "Someone" is.

As per your example. Answer the question.

Elennsar wrote:Crissa: As for the mechanics of magic: We need to work on that. MAD for some classes and not for others is bad. MAD overall, not necessarily. But having casters laugh at it is disgustingly unfair as written.

[tangent]
I would like to see each ability be beneficial to each class.

I would like each class to need decent scores in two stats (one physical, one mental appeals to my sense of symmetry) and not have to have anything else to survive.

High non-primary stats would be beneficial, but not overpowering; low non-primary stats would be limiting but not crippling.
[/tangent]

Clarify the question and you'll get a better answer (so thank you for indicating I missed what you were asking).

As to why...

I am assuming that inevitably some races will be poor at some things unless we deliberately avoid that (which I do not support). Minotaurs will be poor wizards because wizardry involves Intelligence and Minotaurs are poor at Intelligence based things.

The assumption was, if we want any classes to have that, we make it so all do.

Personally, I would go for not. Does that mean that some classes are more limited than others in terms of who can be one? It does. So?

So long as minotaurs, asssuming they're meant to be a playable race, get enough good options, and wizards get enough good options, that "enough" is 6/10 instead of 8/10 is okay.

Elennsar wrote:Elves get elven things.
Dwarves get dwarven things.

Vague. Good, but vague.

Elennsar wrote:Elves get +2 to Perception and Survival, say.
Dwarves get -2 to Perception and +0 to Survival. (assuming we want dwarves to be "bad rangers" as opposed to fair).

A) We don't.
B) Didn't we discuss this?
C) You didn't give Dwarves any bonuses.

Elennsar wrote:However, "dwarven things' are things that are sometimes necessary, and elven things don't always apply.

Gibberish, handwaving, Oberoni fallacy (or was it someone else's that the DM could always fix things?)

Elennsar wrote:Having every race be just as good means that there's no room to have a race that is better at anything ever.

NPCs are not PCs. If you give a choice to a PC, it needs to be balanced.
If the Elf is allowed to be a Paladin and the Dwarf allowed to be a Ranger, your group shouldn't suck just because the classes were swapped by the players - in other words, an Elven Ranger and Dwarven Paladin combo shouldn't be objectively worse.

Once again, you say something that contradicts what you said before.

-Crissa

Vague. Good, but vague.

Specifics are useful when we hammer out the ranger class, but not when making a generic point.

A) We don't.
B) Didn't we discuss this?
C) You didn't give Dwarves any bonuses.

No, but that's because I'm not sure what is equivalant. Again, if we were actually planning this, I'd propose something and hammer it out from there.

Gibberish, handwaving, Oberoni fallacy (or was it someone else's that the DM could always fix things?)

No, its the "Sometimes you need things from the dwarf list, otherwise the dwarf list sucks."

If the Elf is allowed to be a Paladin and the Dwarf allowed to be a Ranger, your group shouldn't suck just because the classes were swapped by the players - in other words, an Elven Ranger and Dwarven Paladin combo shouldn't be objectively worse.

I disagree. "Allowed to be" does not mean "at their best as".

Not all choices from list A (Race) are going to be compatible with all choices from list B (class), and some are going to combine better than others.

Not too much better, but a race which is naturally smart is going to be slightly better at things involving Intelligence.

Now, if the dwarven paladin is worse to the point to being unable to face stuff at the same level, that's a problem (unless it was intended, in which case we just have the issue that not all combinations are playable as a design goal rather than a screwup), but the fact he's not as good at being a paladin as an elf does not mean he's unable to beat a wyvern when he should be able to.

Which is why we have a dwarven rangery things list and a dwarven fightery things list and the same for the other classes or at least archtypes. "Wear mountain plate as practical armor instead of powered armor minus the power supply" isn't on the dwarven rangery things list, because rangers and inch-thick steel plating don't mix.

If it's intended, it's bad game design. And they're bad designers. Objectively.

Causing unhappiness is not what games are for.

-Crissa

Insisting that a dwarf (or any generally playable race) can never be a bad choice for anything is not, however, good design.

If dwarves are interesting and useful with "mechanical stuff" and that's just as important as scouting and tracking, then dwarves can be "bad rangers" (or worse than elves, if not actively hindered) without being unplayable.

And that is my preference (goal is not the right word, since this is an excahnge of ideas, not a project).

Elennsar wrote:Insisting that a dwarf (or any generally playable race) can never be a bad choice for anything is not, however, good design.

Why must there be bad rolls in character creation? What benefit does this serve a game group?

I've asked that three times now.

-Crissa

You don't have bad roles in the group, but you have bad roles because different races have different traits, some of which becoming actively unbeneficial if they pick certain classes.

If you never want to have any race have any shortcomings, then this is irrelevant. If you do, those shortcomings have to matter, and "but I negate them with ____" with ____ being easy/cheap doesn't count as a shortcoming at this point.

So dwarves might make bad scouts. OH NO. One role out of 3+ is unavailable. You still have other choices if you want to play a dwarf (or you want to play a scout, depending on which you start with).

To explain in detail. Let's say you have a strong, tough and big race and a small, weak, but quick race.

If the small race is never regretting its strength penalty, and is able to turn being small into an asset, it has a great advantage over the strong, tough, and big guy.

The idea that you get +1 to hit and +1 to AC for each size smaller than Medium you are (or -1 to each for each size larger) means that you're actually better off as a Power Attacking haflling than a Power Attacking ogre (certainly than a half orc), and can get away with doing less to boost AC.

And if the halfling is able to gain a "fight big guys" ability, where he gets a bonus to hit and damage things bigger than him...

Shudder.

Besides, why should halflings be good fighters? No, really. Why should they be given the option just because someone wants to play the option?

You presumably don't allow people the option of using a katana in Pendragon, so its not like all "no, you cannot do this" is bad for the game at all. Why does it become bad here?

Whether or not Dwarves are playable as any class is unimportant. Whether every allowed Race/Class combination is playable and balanced is important.

If Dwarf Rangers are an allowed class combination, they must be even with everyone else. If Dwarf Rangers are not even with everyone else, they should not be an allowed class combination.

No race's rangers should be better or worse at doing the ranger's job in the party than any other race; if they're better, then they need an LA; if worse, they need to not be allowed to be rangers. If, to do their job, rangers need to be able to sneak, sense, and track (everyone needs to fight, so it doesn't count), then either every race (that is allowed to be a Ranger) is better than baseline at one or two of the three or no race is better at any of them.

Elven rangers cannot be better at doing a ranger's job in a party; otherwise a dwarven ranger is just a fighter who dabbles in rangery things, rather than a competent ranger, so straight across-the-board RNG bonuses are right out (also, they're functionally indistinguishable from being higher level. If Elves never send low-level rangers into battle, then their rangers are better than everyone else's). Elves can get either better senses, better stealth, or better tracking; two of the three is pushing it and means they have to overlap with Dwarves (but not, necessarily, in the same way as they overlap with Hobgoblins). If you do things this way, Elves might end up being good at Stealth and Perception, while Dwarves do Stealth and Tracking (when you can track things across a cave floor, tracking through dirt is easy), and Hobgoblins Perception and Tracking.

Also, it's better to give abilities than always-on RNG bonuses. Giving Elven rangers the ability to passively detect secret doors or reroll Perception checks while being ambushed is better than handing out a +2 to Perception. Giving Dwarven rangers the ability to passively detect traps or to camouflage against stone is better than handing out +2 to stealth.

You could also design separate classes for each race; under that model, Dwarven Ranger and Elven Ranger are different classes that do different things. An Elven Ranger could be a stealth-oriented archer/tracker druid, while the Dwarven Ranger is more like a combat-oriented rogue. This, however, means that instead of designing and balancing 4 races and 5 classes (9 objects) to get 20 choices, you instead have to design and balance one object per possibility.

Every legal race/class combination should be able to contribute. Dwarf should never be a bad race choice for any class that Dwarves are allowed to be. Anything else puts things in the rules to let you sabotage your party. The option to suck should not be left out where people might accidentally take it.

Elennsar wrote:You don't have bad roles in the group, but you have bad roles because different races have different traits, some of which becoming actively unbeneficial if they pick certain classes.

This is different than:

Elennsar wrote:You presumably don't allow people the option of using a katana in Pendragon, so its not like all "no, you cannot do this" is bad for the game at all. Why does it become bad here?

...

You're contradicting yourself.

*sigh*

-Crissa

Different but related to.

The point is that some choices are not available, and some of the not availables are "because they're unplayable (too weak)" as well the things that are "not available" because they don't belong in the setting (whether you could balance them with what is or not).

You have bad roles exist because race X + class Y is bad, but because anyone not trying to pick the inept (Defined as below level appriopriate) combo doesn't pick them, they're not in the group.

Elven rangers cannot be better at doing a ranger's job in a party; otherwise a dwarven ranger is just a fighter who dabbles in rangery things, rather than a competent ranger, so straight across-the-board RNG bonuses are right out (also, they're functionally indistinguishable from being higher level. If Elves never send low-level rangers into battle, then their rangers are better than everyone else's). Elves can get either better senses, better stealth, or better tracking; two of the three is pushing it and means they have to overlap with Dwarves (but not, necessarily, in the same way as they overlap with Hobgoblins). If you do things this way, Elves might end up being good at Stealth and Perception, while Dwarves do Stealth and Tracking (when you can track things across a cave floor, tracking through dirt is easy), and Hobgoblins Perception and Tracking.

Also, it's better to give abilities than always-on RNG bonuses. Giving Elven rangers the ability to passively detect secret doors or reroll Perception checks while being ambushed is better than handing out a +2 to Perception. Giving Dwarven rangers the ability to passively detect traps or to camouflage against stone is better than handing out +2 to stealth.

As stated, elves would get say, +2 to Survival and Perception, which are what comes to mind when "we need a ranger for this" is mentioned. Its not the only thing rangers do, so a dwarf might well do fine (and have things elves don't do on his list, like detect whether or not a cave in is going to happen), but "He has a bonus to every check rangers make"=/= what I am suggesting. Not unless dwarves get a bonus to every check some other equally valuable class makes, and that's not desired.

It means that elves reliably beat nonelves at those checks. That is the goal! Elves are supposed to be able to beat nonelves at those things, just as Dwarves beat nonDwarves at something else that is equally important and humans beat nonhumans and so on. If everyone is competing for DC 25, then the elf getting it on an 8 and you needing a 10 does not mean you're underpowered or he's overpowered. It isn't necessarily a problem even if you need a 12.

A 3 vs. a 17, now we have a problem.

As for "leaving it out in the open"...if you need me to tell you that you can't be a half-orc wizard (because its unplayably below level), then you are literally too dumb to play D&D.

Insisting that racial advantages should be insignificant is as bad as saying they should not exist. If there's no reason that an elf is a better scout, there's no reason to be an elven scout other than pure flavor, and any cultural or psychological flavor you can play as an elf you can play in our species unless humans are specifically their own niche instead of any niche they want.

Crissa wrote:If the Elf is allowed to be a Paladin and the Dwarf allowed to be a Ranger, your group shouldn't suck just because the classes were swapped by the players - in other words, an Elven Ranger and Dwarven Paladin combo shouldn't be objectively worse.

Okay, I really need to call this point out specifically, because you keep saying stuff like this. You've said two importantly different things above. You've said:

1) Swapping the classes on an elf and a dwarf should not make the group suck, that is, vastly underperform relative to typical challenges of its level.

2) Swapping the classes on an elf and a dwarf should not make the group on net worse, that is, perform any worse on challenges than the group did before the class swap.

These are two extremely different claims, and until you specify exactly which one you support, you're going to keep talking in circles with Elennsar like you've been doing. The first one allows some classes to be slightly suboptimal choices, as long as they can still contribute pretty well. The second requires that all race/class combinations be exactly equal, which is, apart from being flavorless and undesirable (see approximations of this in 4E), impossible in a mathematical sense.

If you don't want to support the impossible claim, what you really differ about here is to what extent suboptimal combinations should be allowed to suck, and you should probably talk about that rather than waste your time talking about whatever else. If you do want to support the impossible claim, I can't help you, and neither can 3rd or 4th Edition of D&D (although I won't make any claims about earlier editions, since I don't know enough about them). There are some games for which that claim is not impossible, for which it can work - D&D is not one of them.

It is both not impossible, nor undesirable, for there to be no net negative in the swapping of class/race options.

Option 1 shouldn't be in the game. Option 2 does not require pablum.

If you believe either item, you're arguing a negative, and I won't be able to continue speaking with you.

-Crissa

Elansser You are NOT FUCKING LISTENING TO ANYONE!!!!!!!!!

Do you have to let dwarves be rangers or halfings be fighters or minotaurs be mages?

NO

everyone has said no you DONT have to let them in your game this is not being debated but by yourself with yourself.

We get it. you don't want to allow a lot of options the rest of us probably think should be available, and that is fine if you can find people who want to play that game with you.

BUT

IF you do let them be played the have to be balanced.

Now BALANCED does not mean THE SAME. Your kobold and minotaur fighter can be cool in different ways but they have to be equally cool as each other and as cool as that race in another class. Otherwise they're just traps for players and we want to avoid player traps.

And if you, as a designer, intentionally set traps for players, YOU ARE AN ASSHOLE.

I am not listening to people who insist that because they don't do as well as the guys who do the best at something that they do horribly and can't perform at level apprioate tasks because it is bull.

Let's say you have +15 to Perception and I have +17.

We're competing against DC 25.

Will I win more often? Yes. Will you be unable to achieve it sufficiently often to be level appriopriate? No!


If you can't tell that "hey a race with an intelligence penalty shouldn't be a wizard since they need intelligence", then you are too fething stupid to play the game without sucking unless I hand you something that cannot fail checks.

So that is not a trap. And saying that if you are not the best you can be you suck is fething bullshit if you are still able to succeed a reasonable amount of the time.

So, the elf succeeds 60% of the time and you are 50%. OH NO. The threshold was to be able to succeed 45%.

Minotaurs "can't be wizards" should be backed up by something. Saying they're too low in Int is a shitload better than "because I said so".

I'm going to refer to my monk example again. Assuming the monk class is worth spit and contributes something equal to the other classes, the following could be true easily.

Guys with Dex and/or Wisdom bonuses: Best monks, all things being even.
Guys with Strength and/or Constitution bonuses: Good monks.
Guys with Intelligence bonuses: Perfectly fine but no special "I am a monk with Intelligence" advantage to the Intelligence.
Guys with Charisma bonuses: Same.
Guys with Dex and/or Wisdom penalties: Suck at being monks. Warning label.

Naturally, a guy with a Dex bonus and a Con penalty will be a bit weaker and a guy with a Dex bonus and a Charisma penalty is not missing his Charisma in regards to monkishness in particular.

And insisting that no race can have a Dex or Wisdom penalty so that they make bad monks (and thusly don't do a monk of this race if avoiding being gimped is important) is fething stupid.

If we're expected to get +2/level from skill points, items, and so on, then you having a +17 and me having a +15 means that you are doing your tasks at a level higher than me. If we are supposed to be the same level, that shouldn't happen. Ever. Yes, my +15 is perfectly level appropriate for my level and means that I can beat challenges that I'm supposed to, but your +17 is level appropriate for a level higher. In a steady-state game, this isn't a problem, but if the Dwarf gains a level to gain the ability to do what the elf was doing last level, that's bad, and it makes the game objectively worse for having it.

If two characters are the same class, then they have the same job. If they have the same job and are the same level, they should perform equally well. If the ranger's job is to use Stealth and Perception, then any two rangers of the same level should have the same RNG for Stealth and Perception. They can have different situational abilities, but they need the same RNG.

Anything that is significantly less than optimum, in terms of RNG abilities, is an actual objective bad choice, and having them in your game makes your game worse because you have player traps.

That's fething stupid. It means that there is NO WAY for a guy who has a talent for something to ever benefit from that talent.

Hell, you'd have to drop Skill Focus and the like.

Fething stupid.

The dwarf will fething survive not being as good if his numbers are good enough for the level.

Eliminating "talented" as anything other than flavor means that there's no legitimate reason to be better than someone else at the same roll ever, other than being higher level. Some people ARE better at spotting stuff than others. And there is no reason why this can't be a racial thing above and beyond any individual ability (measured by both of us spending skill points and such on Perception).

You couldn't even give Elves +2 to Dex under that, since that would be a +1 modifier the Dwarf would not have.

Poor Dwarf. I guess having a +1 to something else equally important isn't good enough, he must be identically able.

Gelare wrote:These are two extremely different claims, and until you specify exactly which one you support, you're going to keep talking in circles with Elennsar like you've been doing. The first one allows some classes to be slightly suboptimal choices, as long as they can still contribute pretty well. The second requires that all race/class combinations be exactly equal, which is, apart from being flavorless and undesirable (see approximations of this in 4E), impossible in a mathematical sense.

I think you are confused. 4e in no way represents option 2. In 4e, there is a clear and correct racial choice (or maybe 2-3) for every class, and all other race/class combos suck.

And that is why it is flavorless crap. Because all elves are Rangers, and all rangers are elves, and that's bullshit and boring.

It's having races be equally as good at each class that creates a flavorful and fun game.

Of course, just because Elennsar has said 4000 times that any fluff/personality attached to elf can be attached to humans, I will go ahead and point out that since my favorite elf I've played actually is world weary after having run generations of friends to the ground, such that he is struggling against kinship with those he travels, but I'm sure you can explain how that works with Koreans who naturally live 10 times as long as the average American.

The point is, you can roleplay a human with exactly the same attitude.

"All those I grew close to have died. Over and over again."

You would not need to be an alien race to feel that.

As for all elves are rangers and all rangers are elves:

So...people are more interested in having the highest possible bonuses than doing something with a different flavor, because they feel that if they don't have the highest possible bonuses they'll be too weak.

Bad design to make it necessary to be the best to be able to succeed often enough to be level appriopriate. If that margin is 45% of the time, that I beat it by 5% and you beat it by 10% (or even 15%) isn't too horrible, because the fact you could beat something I can't won't come up at that level.